SUPERMICRO SuperChassis CSE-833T-650B Black 3U Rackmount Server Case 650W 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays

Pros: Excellent Airflow Design. Solid case too. I have no previous knowledge of this case but Super Micro may have been listening to others reviews as the cables were of adeqate length to just plug in an ASUS MB and go. It also came with about a 15 inch front panel breakout cable. It had adequate mounting HW for the MB. My RAID card just plugged right into the backplane perfectly without problems.

Cons: There were only 3 fan plugs on the backplane so I had to get a 4 pin Molex connector to 4 fan breakout cable to supply all the fans. The fans provide lots of airflow but are rather noisy for the home environment. I replaced all with quieter fans since this is used in my house rather than a data center.
The 3.5 inch panel cover may be used as a Hard drive holder but it wouldn't snap back into the bay without modifications - i.e. bending the bay a little to allow the cover and drive to snap in as it has no flexibility and tight tolerances with the drive mounted. I could've just used one of the Raid slots instead for the boot drive since I am not using all 8 of them. (the 5.25 bays are already used for CDROM and USB/audio panel.)

Other Thoughts: I chose this case because it could double as just a PC. If this is what you have in mind, you may need to get a third party 5.25 inch panel for USB and audio outlets in the front as it has none. It took extra build time and ordering for other things like for a 30 inch SATA cable to the CDROM since the case is LONG but it was worth it.

Pros: I am updating my rating to 3 stars mostly because I discovered what caused the power switch/LED plastic housing to seat poorly. It was caused by using the extra, undocumented cable provided, as alternative to the flat ribbon cable - which only mates with SuperMicro MBds. So to DRACONIS - you did well by manufacturing an adapter - no need to feel "sheepish". You avoided the power switch problem that way. When you drop 4 bills for a case, you expect this stuff to work and don’t expect this to turn into a cable project or to buy extension cables.

Cons: It is not easy to find a gender changer for that 16 pin ribbon cable.

Other Thoughts: What is that little flexible clear plastic bulge for on the air baffle. Also, the case no longer includes a floppy drive (the NewEgg pictures show a floppy, the documentation refers to the floppy, but no floppy).

Pros: Great hot swappable fan design. Good airflow. Solid contruction (except for the all too critical power/reset/LED housing). Nice hot swap SATA drive bank.

Cons: In order to change out the cable that controls the front panel lights you need to remove a single set screw attached to a flimsy plastic housing that holds the power switch and bank of LED indicators. Brand new, the screw head was already stripped. Once you remove the screw and the housing, it fails to re-seat correctly and as a result: the on-off switch gets hung up on the sheet metal of the case. What a poor design! The power cables from the MBd are probably only designed with a SuperMicro MBd in mind because both the 24 pin and the 8 pin are too short for a Tyan MBd. Another warning: this may be a 3U case but it will only support a 2U or 1U CPU fan – because of the airflow baffles. There is almost no documentation and only a poor annotated low-res picture for the SATA hot swap board.

Other Thoughts: I had high hopes for this case. They did some things very well but the devil is in the details. It is going back.

Pros: Solid case. Very good air flow. Take any standard server mb.

Cons: Noisy with Supermicro MB.
***Please read the Supermicro's warranty carefully. They warranty products from the date they are sold from their warehouse to the distributor. They only do cross ship for the first yr. After the first 12 months you have to ship the product back to them to get it repaired. If your product sat in the vendors warehouse for 6 months you loose that 6 months from your warranty, particularly 6 months of cross ship. This is unacceptable in my mind for a company that sells server class products to not offer the end user a full warranty from date of purchase. I bought a case and when I tried to warranty it found it was 13 months old before I every purchased and Supermicro wanted me to send a brand new case back to them to have it repaired.

Other Thoughts: Other companies are much more customer oriented about their returns, Intel and Asus are both with regards to server products.

Pros: Solid construction. Ample and well implemented snap removable chassis fans. Well packaged for shipping. Rails included. Semi-customizable CPU air guide. Acceptable quality Hot Swap bays. 650W Power Supply. Easy drive bay access. Serious air flow. Overall a decent rack, but ...

Cons: Short ATX power connectors. Do your homework, and buy your extensions. Fans are loud, and most run at ~ 5K RPM's off of the onboard headers, or HS backplane fan connectors. Proprietary ribbon connector for front panel headers. Standard front panel cable came with NO adapter to meet the ribbon connector (as DID the lower end Super Micro models). I made an adapter, but if it turns out that I could have just removed the whole power assembly, and replaced the ribbon cable (as someone here stated), I feel pretty sheepish. I was going to do just that, but the previous non HS bay models from Super Micro HAD the adapter cable included, so I assumed it was their mistake. If NOT, ANY documentation may have been useful to point that out to assemblers. As a 20+ year seasoned system builder, the fact that I made the adapter cable should point out the short comings of NO documentation. Had I been able to replace the cable, it still would have been a tight length on my Intel MB.

Other Thoughts: Generally speaking, I am actually impressed with the build quality at these kind of prices. I've used several of their non-HS bay models, which are actually cheap for what you get here. SATA connectors would be NICE (as it has NONE), and longer ATX power cables. Not a deal breaker though, just prepare, and you'll still be impressed with the end product.

Pros: 8 Hot-swap drive trays, comes with rails, generally decent quality construction

I was able to get an SNT 3-in-2 hot swap cage into the 5.25" bays very easily without any clearance issues(I used the 8 hot swap drives for data, this hot swap drive for RAID1'd system drives)

Cons: Cables could be a little longer-- I got everything to reach, but they were somewhat tight, as many builds are, in my experience.

Power supply needs more connectors-- SATA and Molex. I had to use Y cables to get everything hooked up.

Rails will only mount in 4-post racks 28" or larger(up to 30-something inches)-- which meant I couldn't use them for my Skeletek rack which is 25". Possibly my Skeletek rack just doesn't comply to standards, but I was a bit disappointed...

Fans are VERY loud. As other people have mentioned, even hooking them up to the motherboard and setting 'silent' in BIOS, they are still about 90% of the sound at full speed-- they do move a LOT of air, however.

Pros: Sturdy, well-built server case. Nice rails

Cons: Using an Intel Server motherboard and almost all the cables from the case to the motherboard are too short. Ended up buying many extension cables for power supply, fans, front panel. Fans are LOUD...Very LOUD. Even proper settings in Intel bios and in Intel Deployment Application could not stop the fans from running full speed. Lack of documentation.

Pros: I bought this with a SUPERMICRO MBD-X8SIL-F-O (which is matx form factor) and only had one issue with the cabling. The 92MM fan next to the power supply is about 1inch too short - which was a bummer. The 24pin cable is just barely long enough, but it all works. Great cooling, and unlike what everyone else seems to say, with my board, setup with 4pin PWM supported fan headers, this thing is not obnoxious at all. I have this running at home, in my basement, and it's hardly any louder than my one semi aggressive 120mm I had in my last case. Even though power efficiency wasn't my first concern, this thing turned out being quite efficient. With a 3430 quad core, six drives, this machine uses just under 100watts idle in windows, using a killawatt meter.

Cons: This was missing one standoff threaded screw spot for my board. This was a big time bummer, as it was the corner by the SATA ports. I put a rubber spacer in its place, and it seems ok, luckily I won't be doing much work on this.

The drive bay trays are a bit cheesier than what I would have expected for the real money this case costs, but haven't had any issues.

Other Thoughts: Since I used a SuperMicro motherboard, I had very few issues with wiring, the front panel is slick when you have the right stuff, as you just plug it in, and everything is done! The fan controller on the board is great, as you can adjust to have it start as low as 30% fan speed, and even that low, this thing provides very good cooling power to all the drives and cpu with passive heatsink. It will auto adjust based on temp, as the new Intel CPUs will ramp fans up from low -> medium -> high based on internal temp.

Pros: Eight hot-swap drive bays, plus two fixed 5.25" full-high bays, *and* a fixed 3.5" bay for floppy or boot drive. Solid build. Quick-swap fans are nice design. Lots and lots of fans. Nice rail kit. What's not to love?

Cons: Not quite sure what mobo they had in mind. Even their own mobo's don't have headers to control/monitor six fans. I think one of the Tyans would work, but even that may have been one fan short.

The low-end ASUS LGA 775 server board I put in there certainly didn't have enough (one rear, three front, one CPU).

Wasn't clear that a non-SuperMicro mobo needed the cable to the front panel to be swapped out (which is something of a pain in and of itself). I put down all the break-out header connectors in place only to discover that the break-out ribbon connector doesn't mate with the ribbon cable coming from the front panel. The other two SuperMicro rack-mounts I've bought don't work that way, so that was an unpleasant surprise. Made it work in the end with no added cost.

Other Thoughts: Ended up buying a fan controller/heat-monitor and mounting in one of the 5.25" bays. So one front fan and one rear fan are on manual control. But was handy in that I was also able to wire up control of jury-rigged fan on the Adaptec 5805 heat-sink. I also monitor the temp of the Adaptec chip, the case in general, the CPU (best I can given the heat-sink greatly distorts the reading), plus the four-port Intel NIC.

So overall I'm glad I have the controller. The 5805 in particular is known to run hot, and I can see the (large) effect of the fan. Just wish I wasn't forced to buy it just so I could use all the fans that come in the case.

Pros: Solid construction and latches, I'm really happy I went with Supermicro. There's plenty of expandability with the slim, 3.5, and 5.24 inch bays. The drive bays all have quick release tabs that make installing both the hot swap and fixed drives a breeze.The hot swappable fans can be quickly removed if one stops working and the air flow shroud really completes this case as a high end server chassis.

Cons: Didn't come with any documentation at all and the online version is barely useful. PSU only has one 8 pin EPS power plug, I had to get a P4 to EPS12V adapter to power my DP rig.

Other Thoughts: A strip of labels numbered 0-15 which each fit into an indent for labeling is a really nice finishing touch.